✗ The myth everyone repeats
Combustion occurs because objects contain phlogiston, an invisible substance released during burning. The more phlogiston an object contained, the more vigorously it would burn.
✓ What is actually true
The phlogiston theory dominated 17th and 18th-century chemistry but was replaced after Lavoisier's experiments in the 1770s-1780s demonstrated that combustion involves oxidation, the combination of substances with oxygen. Modern chemistry explains burning as an exothermic chemical reaction where a substance combines with oxygen.
Reception
The receipts 2 sources